My Father’s Daughter

By Hypatia Artemisia

I am my father’s daughter

my eyes are his eyes

soft outline but piercing gaze

his wrinkles already imprinted on my face

a crease bisecting my brow ridge

from too much thinking.

I am my father’s daughter

odd, bookish, mercurial

my hands behind my back

pacing, pacing.

My father’s daughter is a little girl

locked in her room as he screams

weeping, weeping

my mother wears sunglasses to work.

My father’s daughter hears hushed whispers

of a family curse

my great grandfather’s dark moods

a faint memory of my grandfather

smashing my bike in a sudden rage

My cousin, still a child

and his furious tantrums.

I am my father’s daughter

I must bear his burden

the burden my mother bore

the woman’s burden

of silence

and a wound that festers

that eats her alive from the inside

until she is nothing but a husk.

What is woman?

nothing but a husk

nothing but a vessel.

My father’s daughter will not be a vessel

my father’s daughter strikes back

when he strikes my mother

she screams and the curse is within her

filling her with immolating rage

coursing through her veins

power erupts from pain.

And when their matching eyes meet

she finally sees him

a little man, a sick man

a trapped man, a tormented man

who torments his family

knowing no better.

I am my father’s daughter

his rage is my rage

his sickness is my sickness but

my father’s daughter will not be my father.

What is woman?

woman is the strength

that emerges from suffering

woman is wisdom

woman is

love.

My father’s daughter will not be my father

she knows better.